updated 03:40 pm EST, Thu January 20, 2011

Micro, Unity agree on two-year deal on CMOx tech

Semiconductor maker Unity on Thursday announced it has partnered with Micron Technology to continue work on CMOx solid state memory. Unity hopes the new type of memory will replace current NAND memory. Unity has been developing CMOx for the past eight years and promises to allow scaling past the limits of flash.

The technology is said to also offer better density, reliability and cost benefits compared to traditional NAND memory. The cross-point memory technology is based on a different physics mechanism from other memories. It's based on new materials called conductive metal oxides that can create a passive rewritable crosspoint memory array that requires no transistors in the memory cell.

Unity hopes to commercialize CMOx with Micron's help, which is expected to happen in the next two years and coincide roughly with the term of the deal. Some in the industry believe bringing the technology to market will take twice that long, however. Micron will make a small, undisclosed investment in Unity and grant access to factories that make 300mm chip wafers.